(NewsNation) — Did a tropical volcanic eruption in 1345 trigger the Black Death pandemic that finished up decimating up to half of Europe’s population?
That’s what researchers suggest in a new scientific study that combines historical research with physical evidence found in tree rings and polar borings.
Historians have long suspected that grain imported from Central Asia brought fleas and rats that fostered bubonic plague and allowed it to obtain a foothold across Medieval Europe. The new study, however, outlines a sort of “butterfly effect” that launched half a world away.
The plague rarely affects humans, though the US sees about 7 cases a year. Here’s why
First, researchers declare, there was a volcanic eruption or eruptions in the tropics in 1345. Although Europeans were unaware of that event, they would have soon felt the resulting climate shock, including temperature drops, that ruined harvests.
Italian city-states leveraged trade relationships with areas around the Black Sea to import grain and prevent famine. Something more terrible arrived: The bacterium Yersinia pestis.
Between 1346 and 1353, long before antibiotics, the Black Death swept across the continent and killed tens of millions. Bubonic plague, with its informtale symptoms of swelling and bleeding, had a death rate of between 60% and 90%.
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